IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/p25nh_v1.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Political Scar of Epidemics

Author

Listed:
  • Aksoy, Cevat Giray
  • Eichengreen, Barry
  • Saka, Orkun

Abstract

What will be political legacy of the Coronavirus pandemic? We find that epidemic exposure in an individual's impressionable years (ages 18 to 25) has a persistent negative effect on confidence in political institutions and leaders. We find similar negative effects on confidence in public health systems, suggesting that the loss of confidence in political leadership and institutions is associated with healthcare related policies at the time of the epidemic. In line with this argument, our results are mostly driven by individuals who experienced epidemics under weak governments with less capacity to act against the epidemic, disappointing their citizens. We provide evidence of this mechanism by showing that weak governments took longer to introduce policy interventions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. These results imply that the Coronavirus may leave behind a long-lasting political scar on the current young generation ("Generation Z").

Suggested Citation

  • Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Eichengreen, Barry & Saka, Orkun, 2020. "The Political Scar of Epidemics," SocArXiv p25nh_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:p25nh_v1
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/p25nh_v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5ee35dab44eab5004051eee7/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/p25nh_v1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi & Francesco Trebbi, 2014. "Resolving Debt Overhang: Political Constraints in the Aftermath of Financial Crises," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 1-28, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Guirola, Luis, 2025. "Economic expectations under the shadow of party polarization: Evidence from 135 government changes," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    2. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2018. "Rational ignorance, populism, and reform," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 119-135.
    3. Abuka, Charles & Alinda, Ronnie K. & Minoiu, Camelia & Peydró, José-Luis & Presbitero, Andrea F., 2019. "Monetary policy and bank lending in developing countries: Loan applications, rates, and real effects," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 185-202.
    4. Sebastian Doerr & Stefan Gissler & José-Luis Peydró & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2018. "From finance to fascism," Economics Working Papers 1651, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Nov 2020.
    5. Steven J. Davis, 2019. "Rising Policy Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 26243, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. John V. Duca & Jason L. Saving, 2016. "Income Inequality and Political Polarization: Time Series Evidence Over Nine Decades," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(3), pages 445-466, September.
    7. Andrea Mattozzi & Marcos Y Nakaguma, 2023. "Public Versus Secret Voting in Committees," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 907-940.
    8. Sebastian Doerr & Stefan Gissler & José‐Luis Peydró & Hans‐Joachim Voth, 2022. "Financial Crises and Political Radicalization: How Failing Banks Paved Hitler's Path to Power," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 77(6), pages 3339-3372, December.
    9. Barry Eichengreen & Orkun Saka & Cevat Giray Aksoy, 2024. "The Political Scar of Epidemics," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(660), pages 1683-1700.
    10. Maximilian Grimm, 2024. "The Effect of Monetary Policy on Systemic Bank Funding Stability," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 341, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    11. Reinhart, Carmen & Trebesch, Christoph, 2014. "A Distant Mirror of Debt, Default, and Relief," CEPR Discussion Papers 10195, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Hansen, Ole-Petter Moe & Legge, Stefan, 2015. "Trading off Welfare and Immigration in Europe," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 22/2015, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    13. Oksana Kramarenko, 2015. "The Development of Strategic Bank Lending Industries in the Context of Globalization," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(3), pages 228-241.
    14. Peydró, José-Luis & Abuka, Charles & Alinda, Ronnie & , & Minoiu, Camelia, 2017. "Financial Development and Monetary Policy: Loan Applications, Rates, and Real Effects," CEPR Discussion Papers 12171, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. repec:ces:ifodic:v:15:y:2018:i:4:p:50000000000853 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Matilde Bombardini & Bingjing Li & Francesco Trebbi, 2023. "Did US Politicians Expect the China Shock?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(1), pages 174-209, January.
    17. Aizenman, Joshua & Jinjarak, Yothin & Spiegel, Mark M., 2023. "Fiscal capacity and commercial bank lending under COVID-19," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    18. Octavia Foarta, 2016. "Politically Feasible Public Bailouts," 2016 Meeting Papers 1479, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Davide Romelli, 2022. "The political economy of reforms in Central Bank design: evidence from a new dataset," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 37(112), pages 641-688.
    20. Nathan J. Canen & Chad Kendall & Francesco Trebbi, 2020. "Political Parties as Drivers of U.S. Polarization: 1927-2018," NBER Working Papers 28296, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Jan Libich & Liam Lenten, 2022. "Hero or villain? The financial system in the 21st century," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 3-40, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:p25nh_v1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.